Reverie

by Shain Rose

  Anger.

  “Jett, people don’t want to hear about a disease that tormented me. Cancer makes people squirm.”

  “I’ll ask the question again. Am I ‘most people’ to you?”

  I sighed and bent the paper in front of me. I focused on lining up the edges and creasing it neatly in two as I said, “I don’t know what you are to me.”

  “Well, I’ll inform you then. I’m the guy who screws you into oblivion and then stays to see the sun rise on your skin. I’m the guy who wakes up thinking of you and goes to sleep only to dream about you. I’m your boss, but I’m also your lover. I’m definitely your only boyfriend, and I’m the one who you’ve been contemplating spending your life with even if you don’t want to admit it.”

  I crumpled up the folded piece of paper. It had Levvetor facts on it which I didn’t need to know. I already knew that three out of every five of their terminal leukemia patients recovered in some way. Did they go into remission like me? Not always. And mostly, the companies didn’t track patients past the five-year survival point.

  I was a statistic, and I was a damn good one in their eyes. None of it mattered if I couldn’t find a way to live with it though.

  “Most days, I wake up wondering if it will be the day I start to feel a little more tired, if I’ll maybe get a pain in my bones that will signal the cancer is back. Most days, I’m determined to wake up and avoid every reminder of that looming statistic, the one that Levvetor and all those pharmaceutical companies promote. I’m a damn good stat in their eyes. I’ve survived past their five-year studies, and they don’t even follow up any more. To them, I survived and their job is done. Yet, every single day, I feel like I’m dying. Like I’m not living big enough, well enough, not experiencing enough. So, yeah, I don’t want the reminder from you, or anyone else, that I’m a survivor or that I had leukemia. I want to forget it.”

  “Who's to say I’m going to remind you?” he whispered.

  “You’ll remind me every time you look at me with pity in your eyes. And even if you aren’t thinking about my past, I’ll wonder if you are whenever you ask me how I’m doing or how I’ve been feeling. My paranoia will creep in, and I’ll never feel like the invincible girl you saw before they played that godforsaken commercial.”

  “I never thought you were invincible. I thought you were naive,” he stated matter-of-factly.

  “Well, I don’t know if that’s better or worse than what you think now.” I shoved away from the table and stood. “Does it matter? We should never have come this far. I should have walked away before I started falling in love with you.”

  His nostrils flared, but I didn’t care anymore. None of this mattered. He wasn’t going to be my perfect ending because I wasn’t going to get a perfect ending. No one did. We came into the world alone and we would leave it alone. In between, I’d continue to find ways to stave off the anxieties.

  “Yes. You should have walked away. I’m not going to baby you and tell you that you shouldn’t have. I’m not a damn prince or a knight in shining armor. I have a business to run, Victory.”

  “Then run it! I’m not asking you to do anything else.”

  “Yet, here we are: me screaming at everyone to get out of a very important meeting because my girlfriend didn’t care to enlighten me about the video of her deepest secret being shown to the whole office.”

  “I had no idea my mother was coming today. You have to believe that. That footage was all her doing.”

  “I do believe that, unfortunately.” He rubbed his fingers over his eyes. “You don’t have to sign off on that commercial.”

  “I do,” I countered and turned away as I said the words. “Bastian’s right. He knows I can handle this. I should handle it.”

  “Bastian had no idea what they were going to show. He wouldn’t expect—” He stopped mid-sentence. His jaw worked, and I saw how his muscles tightened as the truth plowed into him. “You told Bastian.”

  I didn’t have to agree or disagree. My silence amplified his rage. It rolled through the room, building like a snowball, like an avalanche, ready to suffocate and swallow us whole.

  “You told Bastian! Fuck, woman!” he yelled and his fist flew down onto the table. The crack of bone hitting solid wood didn’t deter him from pounding it again.

  “You’re going to break your hand,” I murmured.

  “Will that wake you up?”

  “Wake me up to what?”

  “To the fact that you jeopardized our relationship before it even started. You didn’t come to me about this. You went around me and under me and over me but never to me. You never gave me the option to have an opinion, and you never showed me the respect of telling me what was really going on with this deal.”

  “So, it’s about the business now?”

  “It’s about everything.” The pain of his stare ripped through me. “You had cancer, Pix.”

  He emphasized the word, and I knew it was gutting him. My mother and father got that same look when they couldn’t help me but wanted to, when they wanted to mask their pain and fear but couldn’t.

  “I’m still here, Jett,” I whispered. I wasn’t dying any faster than before, I wasn’t any different. I was just me with a past he hadn’t been expecting. He scanned me up and down like he would be able to see the disease, like the scars were visible, like the cancer that had lived deep down in my bones might crawl out and attack. “It’s just me.”

  He walked up so close, his chest was a hair’s breadth away. I smelled his cologne, and his exhalation was a whisper on my lips. He lifted one hand as if he was going to hold my face.

  Yet, he didn’t touch me, my skin was different to him now. Maybe it was tainted; maybe I was too ruined, too damaged. He curled his hand up and fisted it as he drew it back to his side and squeezed his eyes shut.

  “I was trying to get to know you, I was falling for this vibrant being who lived on the edge, not knowing why. And then”—his eyes shot open—“I find you didn’t trust me with some of the most important pieces of your life. You trusted a stranger though. You trusted someone I don’t even trust with my business. You gave him sensitive information about yourself—my girlfriend—and the deal.”

  “You make it sound so bad.” I shook my head and tried to process how to meet his argument head-on. “The information was on a need to know—”

  “Don’t come at me with some bullshit. I don’t care what it was.” He collapsed into his chair like I’d defeated him, like he wasn’t the most ruthless businessman in all the world. His face had fallen. His downturned mouth and his closed-off eyes made me wonder if we could come back from this. “You were supposed to be the light with no dark. You weren’t supposed to have all the complicated bullshit of reality, Pix.”

  “And you were supposed to be able to handle all the complicated bullshit, Phantom.”

  He grunted but didn’t look my way. He stood from the table and started toward the door. “Do what you want with the commercial. It’s your life.”

  My heart splintered. His words felt final. The darkness that had crept in over the weekend seeped further into my soul. The depths of despair clawed at the surface. Shadows stole in, doubts and fears and things that shook me awake in the night.

  He asked everyone to reenter the room and apologized for his outburst as they filtered back in.

  I nodded as the meeting continued. I said all the right things. I smiled. I put on the show I needed to put on as the grief swallowed me whole.

  My mother stopped me after the meeting. “I’m sorry, Vick. I had to come. Harvey called. I tried to contact you. I tried to see you this weekend. But you didn’t answer or text me back.”

  “It’s fine.” My tone was clipped, but I knew I’d pushed her away. I had ignored her so much that this was my fault. My heart wasn’t in it to be mad at her. My heart wasn’t in anything anymore. It was broken, shattered on the ground, smashed to little fragments I was sure I wouldn’t be able to piece back together.

&nb
sp; “Honey,”—she cupped my jaw the way I had wanted Jett to—“I love you. You’re hurting, and it isn’t that commercial that hurt you. Maybe you should come home for a few days.”

  I sighed and tried my best not to let the tears fall. I looked toward the ceiling. “I should get back to work.”

  I didn’t talk to Jett the rest of the day. He disappeared into his office, and I couldn’t find the strength to face him, to know he was done with me, to know we were over.

  I went home early that night. I didn’t stick around to talk with anyone. My phone rang once or twice, but I didn’t answer.

  I took a long shower. I drank a few glasses of wine. I cried quietly.

  I didn’t break though.

  I told myself the next day I would get up and go to work with a damn smile on my face even if the boss was my ex. I’d had him and not even really known.

  Sleep never came. I tried counting sheep but the only things hopping over a fence were my regrets.

  The next morning, I got ready like it was any other day. I put on bright yellow to channel the sun, to illuminate my smile, to appear lighter than my soul would ever feel again. I repeated to myself how I’d known Jett and I wouldn’t last. I told myself I would handle it. But it was like barbed wire had coiled itself around my heart, constricting everything. The blood wasn’t pumping right, the oxygen wasn’t circulating.

  As I got onto the train, I felt it. The jump in my heart. The little skitter, not even really a skip. The light flutter that should have signaled to me that something was off. I didn’t pay it any attention. Health anxiety consumed me when I was first told I didn’t have cancer anymore. I conditioned myself to ignore the signs, to curve my mind’s attention away from my body’s symptoms. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that my heart was breaking, the crushing weight was normal.

  I remember stepping off the train. I remember how the clouds looked so, so gray. Like the rain was coming. Like the bleakness and the turmoil swirling in them wanted out, wanted to dampen the world and bring us all down.

  The first drop was the one that did me in. It hit my cheek harder than a bullet, and I couldn’t take any more pressure.

  Witnesses say I looked confused, disoriented as I made my way across the street, that I stopped to look up at the first drops of rain. When the car hit me, I went down without a fight. My eyes rolled to the back of my head before I even hit the ground.

  35

  Jett

  I hadn’t looked up from my computer since I’d arrived that morning, long before anyone else. I’d blacked out the windows and put my focus where it needed to be.

  Victory Blakely had stolen too much of my attention already. She’d muscled her way into my thoughts, my dreams, and my damn hopes for the future.

  And I wasn’t a man who planned happily ever afters.

  In the conference room, we’d gone back and forth about her keeping the one secret she should have told me. But I understood why she hadn’t. I saw the fear in her eyes, the way she’d seized up during that commercial.

  Like a puzzle piece clicking into place, it all made sense. She rushed into life head-on, afraid she’d run out of time to live. She focused on the good, the positive, the brightness of life because she didn’t want to waste time with the crushing darkness of the reality she’d already endured.

  I couldn’t sleep thinking about how she drew people in with her magnetic optimism, the force actually helped her maintain a buoyant momentum despite her depressing past. My heart ached.

  My pride held on to being right with a death grip. She should have told me. I should have been the first person to know. Not Bastian. Not a damn stranger.

  I sighed and took two of the paperweights in my hand to roll round and round.

  Brey shoved the door to my office open so violently it would have smacked the wall had we not installed a door stopper. “What did you say to her?”

  I raised my eyebrows at the dark-haired woman my brother married. Her face was tight with emotion, and her green eyes blazed bright against her olive skin. She shook with anger. I knew she wanted to lash out—her claws were sharpened, her fangs bared.

  I didn’t reply. I waited. Just as in business, waiting pushed people to open up, even when it was personal.

  “She didn’t come to work, and she didn’t answer my calls last night. Jax told me about the …” Her eyes closed momentarily in pain. “I should have known. She never told me. But you did something. She wouldn’t have skipped work because of this.”

  I looked back at my keyboard, pride rearing its ugly head because she hadn’t called me either, and I wanted her to apologize. I knew I should be apologizing too. I wanted her to do it first though. “Maybe she’s sick.”

  “Get real!” Brey bellowed.

  I jumped at the volume of her voice. “Woman, we are at work.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “You think I care about that more than I care about the well-being of my friend?” She waited a beat and when I met her with silence, she stalked toward my desk and slammed my laptop closed. “Call her right now!”

  “I’m not calling her, Brey.”

  She narrowed those blazing emeralds at me. I set down my paperweights and lined them up. “You should get back to work.”

  Maybe she contemplated it as she chewed the inside of her cheek, but I doubt it. Because the next thing I knew, she swiped the paperweights off my desk so forcefully, the burst of color shattered everywhere.

  Then she slammed her hand down on the desk. “Call her and find out where she is. Now.”

  Getting emotional over a phone call wasn’t worth all this. I picked up my phone and dialed her number.

  No answer.

  Of course.

  I hung up. “She’s ignoring me.” When Brey glared at me, I figured I would do a check. “Alice, ask Gloria why Vick’s not here.”

  Alice responded a moment later. “Gloria is coming to your office now.”

  “Why …” I started to grumble but then Gloria strode in. “Gloria, I didn’t ask—”

  “Victory’s in the hospital.” She cut me off with four words that shot fear as cold as absolute zero dry ice into my veins.

  I shot up from my desk. “What?” My feet wouldn’t move; my body wouldn’t cooperate. Brey was already heading out the office with her phone to her ear.

  Gloria marched up to me and forcefully grabbed my elbow. “Move,” she commanded. “Your driver’s out front.”

  “I’m supposed to fly out to …” I blanked, not knowing for once in my life where I was supposed to be going for work.

  “None of it matters.” She dragged me to the elevators and jackhammered the down button. “She’ll need you there when she wakes up.”

  “Wakes up?” The words jarred me, my autopilot screeched to a halt. “What the hell happened? Is she okay?”

  “Her mother didn’t give many details. She’s passed out. They’re monitoring vitals and running tests.”

  I left Gloria with instructions to cancel appointments indefinitely and manage the team. Jerome went double the speed limit when I told him. She’d impacted his life just like she had my office, my family, my business, everything.

  She touched it and it glittered—that was the brilliance of Victory Blakely. An enigma of a woman so in love with the world, I thought her sheltered to believe in all that goodness. But her approach to life had grown on me. I began to find her naivete refreshing.

  Now, her outlook on life was striking, blinding, and shockingly beautiful. Like the amount of pressure that creates a diamond, she’d been put in extreme circumstances. She came out shining so damn vividly, the world took notice.

  The world wanted every ounce of the light she gave, but I’d seen that light drained. I saw the way she persistently gave it out, even when she was sapped of energy, emptied of all power.

  I wondered when she’d get a break, if she’d ever get one.

  I wondered if the fact that she might not was my fault.


  I jumped from the vehicle before Jerome could bring it to a full stop and ran into the hospital. After finding her room, I shoved open the door.

  Her parents sat on one side of the bed. Harvey perched on the couch in the corner. Brey and Jax arrived a few minutes later, holding hands. We watched my Pix sleep, a bruise and a couple stitches on her forehead. An IV was in her left arm and a heart monitor beeped on her right.

  The room was quiet except for the sound of the machines operating. Her hair was matted around her face and dark shadows encircled her eyes. In the white hospital gown, she looked small.

  Helpless.

  Void of life.

  I cleared my throat, trying to clear away the fear too. “What happened?”

  Her mother’s eyes didn’t leave her daughter’s face. She whispered, “Something to do with her heart. They think it caused her to falter on the sidewalk and a vehicle hit her. I …” She choked on her words. “We weren’t safe enough.”

  Her husband hushed her and told her nobody was at fault.

  She whispered something about medication and diet.

  Brey whispered softly to Jax and then went to stand by Vick’s mother. She said a few things and listened. Brey relayed the information, “The car grazed her.” Then she shook her head a bit as her eyes started to glisten. “Well, she looked dazed according to the person who called 911. The driver must have not been paying attention. The doctors are running tests.”

  “She woke up for a few minutes. She remembers a little,” Vick’s mother whispered. “They sedated her though. Her heartbeat is irregular.”

  The woman broke down again.

  Jax’s phone rang and he took the call, face grim. When he handed it to me, I shook my head. “I’m not taking work calls.”

  “This one you have to,” he sighed and shoved the phone into my chest.

  I glanced at the caller ID. “Bastian, I don’t care about the deal.”

  “That hit was the FDA.”

  The words registered slowly, nailed themselves into me like a torture device. The pain was real, the recognition of it excruciating, and the desire for revenge stronger than everything else.